A storage volume may include a grouping of data of any arbitrary size that is presented to a user as a single, unitary storage area regardless of the number of storage devices the volume actually spans. Typically, a storage volume utilizes some form of data redundancy, such as by being provisioned from a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) or a disk pool. A storage system may have multiple storage volumes for storing the data of one or more hosts (either local or remote). Sometimes, as data is transmitted between a host and the storage system, the data may become corrupted due to any number of factors including hardware error, software error, noise, and interference. To combat this potential corruption of data, protection information is used. Protection information may include error checking information that is generated for data blocks of a set of data, such as a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). The protection information is appended by a host or other device to the data blocks of the data set and then transmitted. Along the transmission path, various elements along the path may compare the data block to the appended protection information.
In order to utilize protection information, the storage devices supporting the volume should be capable of supporting protection information (in storage and transmission to/from the storage devices). At times, a user of the storage system may either want to disable protection information or enable protection information. To do so, however, the user first backs up data for the affected volume(s), deletes the current configuration for the volume(s), rebuilds the configuration to either enable or disable protection information (depending on the desired outcome), and then restores the backed up data. This is time consuming, causes undesirable downtime, and is burdensome for the user to complete.
Accordingly, the potential remains for improvements that, for example, result in a storage system that may dynamically switch between enabling and disabling protection information for capable volumes without requiring downtime.